


Porcupine Love

by lavvyan



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Episode Tag, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-14
Updated: 2018-10-14
Packaged: 2019-08-01 22:22:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,593
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16292894
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavvyan/pseuds/lavvyan
Summary: Steve has been trying, okay? He's been taking his meds and dragging Danny along to his doctor's appointments and making sure they spend a decent amount of quality time together. There's been surfing and paddle boarding and taking Eddie on hikes, and quieter stuff like picking out a color scheme for their restaurant. He's sat through what constitutes comfort movies in the Williams household, a suspicious amount of which are about single fathers and their kids, and if he has to watchWillowone more time he's going to break something. Preferably the dvd.Steve comes up with a plan to reassure Danny re: Steve's health. The results are a bit... unexpected.





	Porcupine Love

**Author's Note:**

> This is set after 8x06, in which Danny hires a stress-management consultant for Steve to make Steve take better care of himself. 
> 
> Concrit welcome.

Taking care of Danny is not unlike what Steve imagines taking care of an enraged porcupine might be like. It's all sharp and prickly things and defense mechanisms and even if you make it to the soft underbelly, you'll probably get your hand bitten off for all your trouble. 

Okay, so he knows from taking the Williams kids to the zoo that porcupines can actually be quite sweet, but that's where the 'enraged' part comes in. Danny's an angry, angry man who accepts unsolicited help with nowhere near the same grace as a porcupine accepts a peanut. As in, he doesn't accept it. Ever. 

Oh, he'll give it. He'll offer support and advice and hire stress management counselors and travel to the ends of the earth to be there for you, but try to make him open up about his worries and all you'll get is, 'It's my own thing, what am I gonna say to you?'

And Steve has been trying, okay? He's been taking his meds and dragging Danny along to his doctor's appointments and making sure they spend a decent amount of quality time together. There's been surfing and paddle boarding and taking Eddie on hikes, and quieter stuff like picking out a color scheme for their restaurant. He's sat through what constitutes comfort movies in the Williams household, a suspicious amount of which are about single fathers and their kids, and if he has to watch _Willow_ one more time he's going to break something. Preferably the dvd. 

The point being, Steve's been making an effort to show he's as healthy as can be. That the radiation sickness has passed and any long-term effects are still in the future. He's been making an effort, Danny's been going along with it, and they've been having fun. Nice, wholesome fun, no stress in sight, but while Danny's been dialing back the micromanaging of Steve's health, there's still a shadow in his eyes Steve can't seem to get rid of. 

It bugs him. His best friend – forever, and maybe he shouldn't have been touched by the casual promise in Danny's words, but he was – is worried sick about his health, and there's nothing Steve can do about it. Short of quitting his job, there's nothing Steve can give him that he hasn't already tried. 

Nothing that doesn't play into Danny's obsessive nature, that is, but maybe it's time to leave rationality behind and feed the beast a peanut. 

He calls Jerry into his office. 

"Listen," he says, "I need your help getting one of those things people put around their wrist to track their pulse on their phone."

Jerry frowns. "You mean a wearable?"

"Yeah, sure." If that's what they're called. 

"Do you want to use it for training?"

"No, I don't." He doesn't mean to glance towards Danny's office, he really doesn't, but...

Jerry's frown clears.

"Ah." He gives an exaggerated nod. "I got you. So nothing to count your steps, right? Just the basics? Like heart rate, blood pressure..." He straightens, getting visibly exited about the possibilities. 

"Whatever you think is best, Jer," Steve tells him, and hopes he didn't just make a colossal mistake. 

~~~

Four days later, Jerry presents him with a slim, black band that seems to be mainly made of rubber. 

"Just put it around your wrist," Jerry says helpfully. "I took the circumference into account, so it should fit just right."

For one insane second, Steve almost asks where Jerry got his measurements. Then he decides he doesn't want to know and just goes with it. 

The band does fit comfortably around his right wrist, even if it looks like nothing so much as a simple, seamless strip of rubber. A weird accessory of the kind a surfer might wear, nothing more. There's a slightly sticky patch on the inside that Jerry tells him is supposed to sit on his pulse point. 

"It measures your heart rate," Jerry explains, all but bouncing on the spot. "Blood pressure, too, though obviously you'll have to sit still for that and doing it on your left would be better. You can press here-" Jerry indicates, Steve presses, and the band starts to tighten around Steve's wrist. "Right. It also checks the cortisone levels in your sweat to monitor your stress levels and it's water tight, well, ish, obviously, you'll lose the cortisone tracking if you go into the ocean. Showers should be fine, though. I've also added an encrypted GPS-tracker that pings its signals only to the app. I might patent this, actually, it's pretty neat."

"Yeah, thanks, Jerry," Steve says, trying not to grimace. He's not... this isn't something he'd usually wear, but maybe...

"I'll, uh." Jerry coughs and points his thumb over his shoulder. "I'll just go install the app on Danny's phone, then. Right?"

Steve sighs. 

"Right," he says, and wonders if he should brace himself.

~~~

Danny ambles into Steve's office a few minutes after Jerry leaves, bemused expression on his face. 

"Why?" he asks, wiggling his phone in the air. 

"You said you were worried." Steve points at the phone. "Now you can check."

It's a horrible invasion of his privacy, but he'll bear it if that's what it takes to make Danny lose that haunted look in his eyes. As grand gestures go, he thinks it's a pretty good one. 

Danny snorts. "You think seeing what you do to your body every time you chase after a perp is going to make me worry _less_?"

Okay, that's... he didn't think of that. 

"Look, Danny, this is all I've got, okay? I've done the treatment, I got a clean bill of health... I can't just sit around waiting for something that might not even happen. I'll go crazy. Yes, I might get," Steve almost stumbles over the word, "cancer somewhere down the road, but I might not. My body could reject your liver, or it could not. With the jobs we're doing, I might get shot tomorrow, who knows?"

"That's... that's a very helpful image." Danny scowls. "Steven. Thank you for that."

"Come on, you know what I mean. Can you just..." He fumbles for the words, fails miserably, "… be positive? For once in your life, can you trust that it's going to be okay? You're making yourself sick, man. You think I can't see that?"

Danny looks almost pained as he meets Steve's gaze. "You think I don't want to? You think this is fun for me? Huh? What am I gonna do tonight, oh, I know, I'll just lie here picturing the many ways Steve could die, that sounds like a relaxing and healthy pastime."

"Danny-"

But Danny waves him off, shutting down, porcupine quills firmly raised. Metaphorically. 

"Look, I gotta..." Danny holds up his phone. "Thanks for this, really, it's a nice sentiment." 

He turns around and walks away, shaking his head and laughing quietly at god knows what. 

Steve's heart aches at the sound. 

He wonders if Danny's app will inform him of this. 

Jerry appears in his doorway, watching Danny leave before he turns to Steve. 

"So," he asks, hesitant, "guess I'm not patenting it?"

Steve sighs. 

"Let's just say I wouldn't wait for the customer feedback."

~~~

They don't talk about it. Steve keeps wearing the band, even though he has no idea if Danny uses the app. He wears it when he's running, swimming; times his infrequent jerk-off sessions so they're at the end of his workout when his heart rate is already elevated. He feels stupid doing it, but there is such a thing as too much information. Standing in the shower, seeing the black strip of rubber around his wrist as he pulls himself off, his thoughts keep drifting to Danny. 

He honestly can't tell if that's a bonus or not. 

Every now and then, on the bad days when Steve feels like he's going to vibrate out of his skin, Danny will show up in Steve's office and offer a tea, a snack, a distraction. It invariably makes Steve feel better, but Danny already had a habit of doing that. It might have nothing to do with the app. 

It probably has nothing to do with the app. 

But if there's a chance, however small, that Danny can roll over on a sleepless night and fight his insomnia by checking that Steve's home, safe and breathing, well. 

Steve would do a lot more for that than wear a stupid wristband. 

~~~

Except it turns out the thing isn't stupid at all. 

~~~

"I was sleeping!" Danny complains for the fourth time. 

Steve, sitting on the rear end of an ambulance while an EMT needlessly fusses over him, glares. So maybe he got clobbered a little, but everyone knows head wounds bleed a lot. He's _fine._

"For the last time, this isn't my fault," he says, at the end of his patience. The EMT pokes at his temple and he winces. "It's not like I took out an ad saying 'please kidnap me in the middle of the night for maximum annoyance of one Danny Williams.'"

"You would," Danny mutters, pacing. 

He showed up with the rest of Five-0 barely ten minutes after the apparent leader of Steve's kidnappers had ripped the band from Steve's wrist and tossed it to the floor, sneering. Considering the night-time lull of traffic and the speed with which they'd dragged Steve from his own house to their hideout in Kalihi, Steve has been kidnapped for a total of maybe half an hour. Forty minutes, tops.

All in all, the experience has been more annoying than anything else. 

Danny, on the other hand, still looks like he's two steps too close to a heart attack. 

"Will you sit down?" Steve snaps. "You're making me dizzy."

"Dizziness is not a sign of good health," Danny snaps back, but he sits down next to Steve as the EMT bustles back into the ambulance. 

After a moment, Steve bumps their shoulders together. 

Danny sighs. 

"I don't know if I wanna thank Jerry or kick him in the shin for not warning me."

Apparently, Danny's app makes a sound fit to raise the dead when the wristband abruptly loses track of its wearer's vital functions. 

Who knew?

"For the record," Jerry says, stepping up to them and holding out a familiar black band to Steve, "I'm perfectly okay with the thanking. Here, this one's new."

Steve takes it and slips it around his wrist. The slight pressure feels weirdly reassuring. 

"Yeah, well, jury's still out," Danny says, but he gamely holds out his phone for Jerry to link to the new wristband. 

"Well, Commander." The EMT reappears with a medium-sized bandage and a cheerful smile. "Looks like you were lucky tonight, but I'd still like to take you in for a scan."

"Is that really necessary?" Steve asks. 

"Let the nice person make sure you're not bleeding into your brain," Danny says. Steve feels one corner of his mouth twitch up for a second. Apparently, Danny hasn't been any more successful than Steve in deciding whether the EMT is a man or a woman. Not that it matters. "I'll bring the car."

Steve wants to tell him to go home, have a rest, Steve can call a cab if they don't keep him overnight. He wants to say that Danny spending hours in a joyless waiting room isn't necessary. Steve is fine on his own. 

"Yeah, okay," he says instead. 

Danny doesn't even look at him, but his fleeting smile is all the answer Steve needs. 

~~~

His stay at the hospital predictably takes hours. It's a lot of sitting around and waiting, interspersed with brief interludes of activity. Danny was told to wait outside the examination area, so Steve doesn't even have anyone to distract him. 

He closes his eyes and tries to come up with the best plan to make Danny spring for breakfast. 

Also predictably, his head is fine. No damage apart from the laceration at his temple, which the EMT already took care of. Steve blows out a breath and makes his way back to the waiting area. 

And stops. 

Danny's slouched in a chair, head tilted back to rest against the wall. His eyes are closed, face slack, clearly asleep. His fingers are curled loosely around his phone, the display showing...

Steve swallows and steps closer. 

His pulse seems to be a bit fast, but the number on the little screen is still a reassuring green. Next to it, a separate square with the word 'stress' on top contains three bars labeled 'good,' 'okay' and 'not good' one atop the other. 'Okay' is glowing orange in the middle. 

Below that, a tiny map shows Steve's location. 

He swallows again, nudges his fingers against the side of Danny's neck. He lets them rest there for a moment and is rewarded with Danny sleepily pushing his cheek against them. 

"All good?" he mumbles.

"Yeah." Steve clears his throat. On Danny's phone, his pulse rate takes a decided turn towards greenish yellow. "Come on, I'll drive."

He doesn't remember his plan to make Danny buy them breakfast until he's already got them home. 

"You wanna crash on the couch?" he asks. He's not going to let Danny drive to his own house, especially not through morning traffic. 

Danny rubs a hand across his face as he blinks himself further awake. He purses his lips, and then seems to reach a decision. 

"Not particularly."

Steve knows what's going to happen before Danny reaches up to slide a hand behind Steve's neck. It seems inevitable, the most natural thing in the world, and so he's already leaning down when Danny starts to pull at him. 

The first brush of their lips together is gentle, testing. It's pleasant enough for a second, firmer contact, and a third, and a fourth, and by the time Danny opens his mouth to Steve's tongue they're both smiling, happy with how uncomplicated this is. Danny's last bad hospital coffee was long enough ago that he tastes of nothing but himself and it's _amazing,_ that one last piece in the fabric of Danny Williams finally known. Steve presses closer, tastes him more deeply, greedy for more, for everything. He grunts when Danny's hands on his ass push their hips together, earns himself a moan when he sucks Danny's tongue into his mouth. He feels wonderfully, gloriously drunk on Danny, _Danny_ ; it's-

A shrill beep that seems specifically designed to pierce through Steve's eardrums makes them jerk apart, Steve's hands flying to his ears as Danny fumbles for his phone. A few taps with his thumb and the sound stops, leaving a ringing silence between them. Danny keeps his eyes on the screen... and then he starts to laugh. 

He laughs so hard the phone drops from his hand, and it's only Steve's reflexes that save it from clattering to the floor. Steve puts a hand on Danny's shoulder to keep him from doubling over, using the other to check what's so funny.

The display, in big, angry letters, flashes its message. 

RESTING HEART RATE TOO HIGH

"Jerry," Steve groans.

"For the record," Danny manages, "that feature is new."

"Great, good to know," Steve mutters, his cheeks feeling warmer than they should. 

Danny grins up at him, face flushed, eyes bright. 

"Wanna see if we can find any other hidden alarms?" he asks with an exaggerated leer. 

God help him, but Steve adores this man. 

"The mating rituals of the porcupine," he says, and refuses to explain himself all the way up the stairs. 

~~~

The End.


End file.
